Once
by derangedfangirl
Summary: He'd had a life, once. He doesn't regret his current state- a long, drawn out death. Graverobber muses on a long-forgotten life.


He'd had a kid, once.

Tiny little thing, really. Too pale, too skinny. But she'd had the biggest green eyes he'd ever seen.

(He would've said she had her mother's eyes, just for the sake of yarn, except that the woman had gotten so many damn surgeries by the time he'd met her, he wouldn't have been able to tell the "real" her from Jesus.)

Her name was Alex. Or maybe Ali. Something like that.

There were probably more than a few little bastards running around with his chin or too-thin lips, come to think of it. That was usually a side effect of discovering sex at thirteen and barreling along full tilt, young and stupid; a teenager with his first fake ID. Granted, the loss of his virginity hadn't been a particularly pleasant experience. He was just lucky he hadn't been pretty. Hell, he'd been able to pass for a man in his mid-twenties at sixteen. (He'd also invested in a very long, very wicked hunting knife, which he kept securely in his boot.)

He wondered, sometimes, if little Alex had managed to get smart and get out. He hoped so. In his more whimsical moments, he imagined that she was in some swanky apartment somewhere. Most of the time he figured she was dead, or as close as made no difference.

He'd had a family, once.

Yeah, his mom had been a whore, drank too much. But he'd loved her, and was pretty sure she'd loved him, in her own, twisted way. She had _kept_ him, after all.

In one of her rare moments of sobriety and even rarer moments of benevolence, she'd given him some sage advice.

"You're an ugly little fucker," she'd begun fondly. "But you're smart."

He'd flushed a little at that. He wasn't some pansy assed geek. So what if he snuck into the public library sometimes? The fucking place had a functional heater, and soft couches to boot. But she'd just laughed at the infuriated expression. "Listen to me, baby. That brain of yours is gonna keep you alive someday. Hell, it might even make you some money."

She'd paused, tilting her head shrewdly.

"But don't never stop surviving. Do what you gotta do, and don't apologize for it. What those rich pigfuckers on the south side think isn't worth dog shit."

Apparently, his ever wise mother had done other things too much, too, because he found her in a mass grave about five years ago, OD'd on some back alley shit. A speedball of Z and angel dust. He'd cursed her roundly for not just coming to him in the first place, then wrapped her in a clean, tarp and put her in some rich fucker's casket. Dear old Jenny always _had _wanted to get in with a money pig. He figured it was the least he could do.

His dad… well, fuck knew. He'd never met the poor bastard. He'd had a little brother, too, dirty blond and snot nosed little thing, last time he'd seen him. Granted, that was 15 years ago, but he doubted the kid had changed much. If he was alive, and Graverobber hadn't seen any evidence to the contrary, then he sure as shit wasn't inviting his big brother over for thanksgiving dinner. Ungrateful little twerp.

He'd had a name once.

He'd always hated it. He figured his mom had probably been high when she picked it... That, or her taste for irony had been particularly virulent that day. Either way, it didn't fit him at all; it was something suitable for a cheap romance novel hero, or some frail pretty boy, not a smart mouthed scrappy little thing like himself. Naturally, he'd gotten rid of that name as soon as he could, adopting "Graverobber" as his moniker, even before it had turned into a professional title. When she died, he convinced himself that his name didn't matter. "A rose by any other name", after all.

He didn't miss hearing it. Not really.

"Gabriel" died with the rest of the world, and he won't mourn it. His 'real' name was just like that strange little bug-girl from the opera- too frail to survive the society of organ repossessions and stygian back-alley shadows.

He spits on the ground beside a half-rotted corpse, and keeps walking.


End file.
